


Stirring the Pot: II

by Daegaer



Series: Stirring the Pot [2]
Category: Jewish Scripture & Legend, תלמוד | Talmud
Genre: Amoraim, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen, Magic, Rabbis, Talmud, women's magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22908760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: The fame and skill of Rav Nachman's daughters grows. So does their discontent.
Series: Stirring the Pot [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674706
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: Purimgifts 2020





	Stirring the Pot: II

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cantarina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantarina/gifts).



Rav Nachman was blessed with sons who were like him in their devotion to learning and with daughters who grew in beauty and piety. So beautiful they were that a young man might fall down in a faint just from catching their eye, and so pious that they could stir a boiling pot with their bare hands and suffer not the slightest reddening of their slender fingers. Were not such marvels only the due of such a famous scholar who was the very reflection and pattern of the type of man the Messiah would be?

And so his guests spoke not only with Nachman and his sons, but also with his daughters, Miriam, Deborah and Huldah, calling them _Lady_ , and noting how they hid their beautiful faces behind veils of costly silk. Such modesty! Such feminine skills shown in the clothes they made and wore! Such loveliness promised by the wonders of their eyes and the way the plumpness of their cheeks under the veils suggested they smiled! All of Nehardea spoke of them, in ways that brought pride to Nachman, and he thought long on which of his students he should grace with his daughters' slender-fingered hands. Only Rav Ilish looked aside when the fame of the young women was spoken of, muttering, "Let it be as you say," or "A chaste daughter is a jewel unto her father." But all knew that such as he had no hope of courting such wondrous women, and laughed.

In time Miriam, Deborah and Huldah were wed to the best of their father's students, young men to whom they had rarely spoken. Their husbands lived in Nachman's house and gloried in the fame of their wives and their father-in-law. They still spoke rarely to their wives.

"Mother," Deborah said. "Do husbands ever _see_ their wives?"

"Mother," Huldah said, "My husband required me to spend more time cooking his dinner than it needed, so that his friends might come into the kitchen and watch me stir it! The food was ruined, and he laughed at my youthful silliness!"

"Mother," Miriam said, "My husband kisses my hands every night, and blesses the fame they bring him. Then he leaves and goes to kiss another girl to whom he was once promised, the younger sister of the friend with whom he studies the Law. I do not wish do bring him into disrepute – but how shall I ever have a daughter of my own when another woman has his heart?"

"It is not for women to choose their husbands, my daughters," their mother said. "I was but twelve when I wed your father and gave up my dolls for babies. In these days now he speaks to me with courtesy and asks my opinion and he praises my skill as a healer and has decreed that I should be carried in a litter even on the Sabbath if I need to reach the bedside of one who is ill, but at first it took him six months to remember than my name was Yalta rather than Yehudit." 

She kissed her daughters' faces and smiled. "You are growing skilled in the wisdom of women, dearest girls. I will teach you the words to speak as you stir the food that will increase the respect and love your husbands bear you. All will be well."

She did not teach her daughters all that she knew, however, for within a week pagan bandits had come to the market and stolen those who shopped there for their families' food. 

The daughters of Rav Nachman were amongst their number.

[source](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-upperclass-jewish-women-in-ancient-israel-14124446.html)

**Author's Note:**

> I have named the daughters after famous biblical women prophets, because Nachman approvingly noted that some famous biblical women had "hateful" names which stopped them being conceited: _It is not seemly for women to be conceited; the two prophetesses Deborah and Huldah had hateful names, namely, 'bee' and 'weasel'._ A popular etymology for "Miriam" in antiquity was "bitter sea/waters".


End file.
